Introduction, or Why This Blog Won't Last Long

Hello. My name is Josh, and I am a writer.

Of course, the problem with saying that is that everyone immediately asks, “Oh really? What have you written?” The answer, in my case, is a lot of things. But none of it is anything you have likely read (actually, given the people who are actually reading this, that’s probably not true. I’m just pretending someone other than Tammy, Sammy, or Meg will read this at some point). This is because I’m a writer, not an author. The difference, to me, is the same as saying someone is an amateur and not a professional. I don’t get paid to write, although I’d like to someday.

Of course, saying I’m a writer implies that at some point in my daily activities, I sometimes write something. This brings up another important distinction between authors and me: authors actually finish what they start writing. I’ve been working on the same novel for 15 years or so.

What I need is discipline. I have a sanguine personality; I flit from one thing to the next. It’s difficult for me to stay self-motivated on one thing for very long. I’ll be excited about writing for awhile, and get a decent amount accomplished, but then I’ll lose interest and go on to something else. Eventually the urge to write comes back and I go through the process again. It’s the same principle that keeps me from exercising like I know I should; it just gets tedious. I find things I’d rather be doing.

The solution is finding people to keep me accountable. People like award-winning author Tamara Siler Jones (check out her link), who I met in an online writing workshop and who is there to kick me in the butt every time I start to wander away from writing. Because of her and a few other friends from the workshop, the book I spent 15 years writing actually got completed and sent out to agents. It was, of course, rejected, and I am currently rewriting much of it, but the point is that the book probably would never have been completed if I hadn’t found a way to be held accountable.

I’m not saying I write every day now, but these days I have actual reasons for not being able to write; it’s difficult to write and stay on top of two toddlers at the same time. Still, I have managed to move the story along a bit. Someday maybe it will be ready to send out to agents again. And then maybe I’ll even get to be an author.